How lovely, on our return to Strath Lunndaidh yesterday, to be greeted as we set off through the forestry by the call of a song thrush and, almost as soon as we emerged onto the open hillside by....
....a skylark who circled and sang low above our heads. He was one of several skylarks, two of the others....
....being intent on chasing each other around the new planting and, when one caught up with the other, indulging in some....
....fierce aerial combat.
At the end of each winter the males return to these upland areas first, to establish their territories and then to spend hours flying above them, singing their beautiful song. This requires great stamina and the better the male's display and territory, the more likely he is to attract a mate when the females return for the breeding season, which starts in March.
While we were watching the skylarks' antics a skein of geese rose noisily from Loch Fleet to fly across a grey sky, the clouds only beginning to break up as we reached Loch Lunndaidh.
Much of the land above the loch was put down to trees a few years ago and it was in the conifers that we heard a call which we recognised from our walk on Tuesday: these rather isolated forests are already home to a pair of bullfinches.
When we came to the furthest point of our walk and stopped to listen to the silence across the loch we spotted a lone swan. There was a pair here a year ago so we hope that this one will soon be joined by its mate.
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